Chloe

I hate things. This is not a surprise, nor is it a secret. Especially when it comes to movies I have a tendency to hate things to the exclusion of positive characteristics. Sometimes, however, I hate things so much they don’t even register anymore, which means I occasionally find myself in theatres surrounded by things I hate (cold, people, sticky floors) looking at things I hate even more (Valentine’s Day was a wonderful case in point). I sat through Happy Feet, realizing halfway through that I hated tap. I sat through the Wolfman, realizing halfway through that I hated Benicio del Toro. Clarification: I did not hate tap or BdT in the movies I hate both full time, all the time, just so, so much that I never noticed they were in the movies until the movie had well and truly started.

I deeply dislike Julianne Moore. I find she lacks depth as an actress and banks on little else but her oh so cool and clean and fragile “beauty” in whatever role she plays, and I thought her casting as not-just-to-my-mind-iconic Clarice Starling was a travesty only eclipsed by the rest of that heaven-renting disaster of a movie (Entertaining? Sure, gore almost always is. Good? Hell no).

I also dislike movies that are casted based on currently popularity of the cast rather than making effective (and affecting) use of the available pool of talent. Give me well-cast unknowns rather than badly cast bigger names. But I realize I am ranting against an unavoidability here, and I would never cast myself as Don Quixote, no matter how sturdy Rosicante, or how lovely Dulcinea. Some windmills refuse to be anything but giants, but some giants refuse to be anything but windmills, so it all works out, I find.

However, I do not hate either Julianne “Tales from the Darkside” Moore OR obvious casting so much that I avoid movies based on those aspects. I should, maybe, but I don’t.

I have been lucky in that regard as it has allowed me to see two movies with both Julianne AND relatively popularity induced casting over the last few weeks, and hey, colour me pleasantly surprised.


The first was “A Single Man” which is, apart form one small flaw, so very very poignant and touching and just all round good that it almost made me forget that I hate Julesy (and mohair sweaters) because she (like everybody in this movie) was just insanely, heartrendingly, believably on her acting-game. If you have not seen this movie yet, go see it. Now.

Reeling from finally having seen Julianne do something that did not make me want to slam her into a wall again (how else to explain that lack of profile) I decided to give the badly reviewed “Chloe” a chance as well. It has Julianne. It also has Amanda Seyfried. I do like Amanda Seyfried, somewhat, but I feel she is being overused at the moment. And I thought her somewhat to light and bubbly for the premise of the movie.

A premise that is as old, predictable and classic as it is simple: Woman (Jules) expects her Husband (Liam Neeson, another one for the “Oh really, you wanted a fatherly figure with an edge? Gosh” box) of cheating on her and decides to hire a prostitute (Seyfried) to seduce him, later suffering Horrible Consequences™ for her unwillingness to tackle the situation directly (Symbolism! Moral!).
Now, in this movie the Horrible Consequences™ are not altogether too horrible to behold. Yes, there is a little blood and some violence, but it could have all been a lot worse, and I seem to remember several movies where it did.

Seyfried seemed well set to massively disappoint, but I have to say, she didn’t. Her role as a prostitute could have been played darker, edgier and with a little more fatale glamour, but I think that the simple fact that she did not, that she kept it light, even comically teeny, made it all the more dangerous, all the more understandably seductive.
Because of course, this movie is about seduction. Not necessarily the sexual kind, but a slow and subtle game of leading astray is constantly being played. It is not always played well, obviously, sometimes the tactics and moves are a little… shall we say… pedestrian? But played it is and to relatively good effect.


I really enjoyed this movie. It was slow, but absolutely gorgeously filmed and many of the locations, outfits and shots echo a certain lush emptiness that matches the feel of the movie and the character’s very well, if a little too well in some cases. I’m not going to spoil the movie that much but to use the traditional beautiful-but-mottled-mirror-obscuring-a-face trick to imply a person’s slightly skewed way of seeing themselves has been done to death now, lovely as the imagery is.

Go see this movie as well. I’m not saying I don’t still dislike Julianne “can somebody beat her some” Moore with quite some passion, but I need to give her snaps for these two movies at least.


This post to ease myself back into some sort of regular blogging. My apologies for the long hiatus, I will strive to improve.


K